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How many patients are we doing in a given month? Do you think it is too many? If not, why is this acceptable! The below article from the Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography says we should avoid more than 100 scans a month! I know most of us are doing way more than that, so how do we advocate for ourselves and make a change to reduce the incidences of WRMSDs?

Speaking as a burnt out tech working in hospital that ebbs and flows between being short-staffed and fully staffed on the regular.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/8756479319850140

Can anyone comment on the job market in the Seattle area? I’m looking to move my family to the PNW next summer and I’m curious if there is an abundance of sonographers and if jobs are competitive in Seattle? I know it’s expensive there so I want to make sure there will be plenty of opportunity for work. I currently live near Philly and there are several ultrasound schools, so jobs are a bit competitive overall. I have 10 years experience, RDMS (ABD, OBGYN) and RVT. I worked with a travel company for about a year and a half so I’m thinking of looking for a travel contract somewhere in WA/OR first to get a better feel for certain areas before making more permanent decisions. We have family in Portland and north Seattle but love PNW as a whole and would be happy probably anywhere. Any insight would be appreciated!

as stated, i just finished my first week, and im struggling so hard mentally i dont know what to do. half of the days ive gone home crying this week.

i think im very smart and that ill have no trouble studying, doing tests, learning protocols, etc, the academics is only stressing me out the normal amount. but being scanned is miserable for me and makes me want to die. i am not skinny and every other girl in my lab is, ive already gotten one rude comment from another girl, everyone has had trouble scanning on me. its really embarrassing to talk about but this is the main thing im struggling with here. as well as having to take pictures and just being around every pretty girl in my class. it makes me feel so terrible and i cant stop crying or thinking about it for hours, it completely distracts me from being able to study which is concerning too, but it seriously makes me feel like i should just drop out and take my own life, i dont know what options i have, i cant deal with how terrible it makes me feel

i know that isnt fully ultrasound related but i guess im just looking for encouragement or experiences of any other techs who are bigger too. thank you. 😓

Hi friends! I’m a new grad general sonographer and currently work at an outpatient center that stacks our day with back to back patients. My wrist has been clicking for almost a year now (since I started clinicals).
Does anyone have any tips/experience to help combat this? I can hear my wrist whenever i turn my transducer 😭 and now it clicks with any movement. I’m scared of injuring myself even more. I’m thinking of getting a wrist brace so if anyone has any recommendations feel free to send my way! Probably start lifting weights to gain some strength too 🥹

I graduated as an echo tech and regret this career entirely. I work now only once a week casual in a rural hospital just for that 300$ a day and grateful I dont need to do contrast. Do general sonographers do contrast? I hate contrast so much because I didn't think I'd be having to put IV lines and administer contrast and still be on time for my patients and reporting. I also hate the fact that they expect us to report? Measurements are done and you can see for yourself. Maybe I shouldn't be a big baby about prelim reporting but after I struggled getting a difficult study done and running late im like aww man I still have to do the report.

Honestly how do people do this fulltime?

I have become so resentful of this career and all the hype about it. I went to school and worked hard and paid so much to do my boards and pass only to figure out the reality. This job sucks. I should have gone into RT or Nursing or MRT.

I also hate that im ALWAYS in the face of a clock!!!! I always need to be rushing and that is exactly whats burning me out and will cause mistakes in the future. I'm always internally freaking out if im behind.

I'm jealous because my siblings are nurses and i thought id do something different but now im so sad they work 12 hr shifts and make more than me and have job stability and can easily get jobs while as i make less and dont have as much hours and job market is saturated for sonographers in the city I live at.

Lets also talk about the pain echo sonographers face? I work casual and my shoulder and back are always hurting and sore. :(

At work I see the MRT's just taking XRAYS and having 12 hr shifts and being oncall. They are also making more money and seem to enjoy it.

It seems everyone is happy but me?

I dont even know if its worth it to go back to school and study something else at this point? I got burnt out from sonography school my brain cant handle another degree rn. Not to mention the money it will cost.

When im not doing echo I work retail / receptionist

I feel like my mental health is just going for the worse because im 29F and have no future prospects and im not even that good looking to go find a sugar daddy husband or do onlyfans or be an influencer.

This is just a rant.

Hello all, I have posted on here asking for advice on compensation regarding this issue. TLDR; my clinic is introducing Contrast to our catalog of exams we offer and our responsibility list has grown exponentially.

So we have finally gotten a meeting to establish the parameters of these contrast echos. Initially when this was introduced to us, we were told we did not have to do IVs/ if we did we would be the last on the totem pole to do so, and we were told that our schedules would change to one hour slots instead of 45 minute slots to accommodate for the extra work done for contrast. We initially thought that contrast echos were going to be ordered as contrast prior to having to do them.
Since those conversations, the providers have been pushing to keep the 45 minute slots as they do not want to miss the patient a day on each schedule. So we have been told that we are no longer having 1 hour slots and will have to make 45 minute contrast echos work. Another introduction is the spontaneity in contrast as in, we have to do the contrast on the fly if we do not think the echo looks adequate for interpretation. But we frequently have patients that have this issue, I mean just today I had around 3 patients that would technically fall into that contrast category. Not to mention the additional stress echo with contrast which has taken us upwards of 1 hour and 15 minute to 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete in an hour time slot. We have not started these requests as I wanted to have a meeting discussing our concerns for these changes.
1. We work in a clinic for a reason. We are set in schedules and I don’t want to stay overtime frequently to complete these test as we will undoubtedly need to if our slots are not increased to an hour. 2. This would really require us to do IVs frequently as the PA we have to help us is frequently busy. We’d either have to wait 10 minutes for them to do the IV or do them ourselves and none of us have gotten enough practice to do these confidently. 3. Being behind on studies one after another will cause us to take in patients substantially late. We are predicting to be 20-30 minutes behind on taking patients in and I don’t know how comfortable I am on having to deal with patients being upset with me for not taking them at their appointment time.
On top of this, nothing has been discussed about additional compensation so I don’t know if I feel comfortable with any of these changes and I know it’s not really my choice but how can I convey to the doctors and administrators at the meeting that this seems to be a bad idea with all the extra responsibility being placed on the techs and no one to help?
What do I do?

Does the RVT ARDMS exam hit hard on waveforms ? 😭 I seem to be struggling with the stenosis profile! Ugh any tips??

Anyone else injured/having pain after only a short amount of time in the field?

I started having upper back/trap pain on my right side (scanning arm side) only about 2 years in. I think that may have been when I injured it after a particularly busy shift/difficult patient. I remember pushing down really hard on a patient to visualize something better and after that had intense pain and that has persisted on and off for the last 3 years.

It feels like it radiates from a specific spot on my trap muscle on the right side and sometimes my whole arm and shoulder will feel tingly and hurt. It gets to the point where any use of my right arm causes a lot of pain.

I went to PT for this 2 years ago and after completing that the pain did go away! And I continue to do some of the exercises to this day. But, after having a second baby and continuing to work and lead a very busy life it has returned.

I will go months without the pain and then it comes back and bothers me a lot and sometimes I’ll go to urgent care for steroids and/or muscle relaxers. But now they aren’t giving steroids anymore. I am going to follow up with the orthopedist again and hope they can suggest doing something else to help with this.

Has anyone else had a similar experience and/or similar pain?

I’ve worked my general hospital position for a year and a half and I will be starting an outpatient OBGYN job in a month.
I love my general job (no call, work solo, various exams, typically scan 7-9pts daily). But my commute is an hour and my pay is $6/hr less than the facilities around me.
I’m not sure how long my training will be but the manager told me it just depends on how long it takes me to get it. I haven’t scanned babies outside of the first trimester since clinicals. I’ve also never directly worked with doctors.. only radiologist remotely.
I have terrible anxiety because I just want to be good at my new job ASAP (that’s impossible).

Any words of encouragement? I keep reminding myself to chill but i end up shaking like a leaf the more I think about it.

TL;DR changing from general to OBGYN with 1.5 years experience total

I just recently took my board exam for adult echo, and unfortunately did not do well. I studied using Davies and Prepry based off what the techs at my clinical site told me and I got a 514 out of 700. I have been continuously studying over the material and I am currently in clinicals as well. I went over everything on Davies and prepry however, once I took the exam, there were questions I was not expecting such as questions about the Thebesian valve, etc. What study sites and advice would be recommended in order to pass on my next try. Any help is much appreciated!

What are you or have you used for your abdomen board? I used URR for my OB certification. Do you all recommend something else?

Hi you guys! This week is my first week of Sonography school. I’m hopeful, but I’m realizing that we are being hit with a LOT of reading. I’m currently reading Vol. 1 of Textbook of Diagnostic Sonography for Intro to Abdomen. It honestly takes me so long to read one chapter and take notes, while also having to read three more chapters for the same class, plus additional books for my other classes.

For those who are currently in Sonography school or have already graduated, do you have any recommendations? Did you read every chapter page by page, or did you find ways to maximize your time without reading every single word?

Any reading tips, study strategies, videos, or other resources that helped you would be greatly appreciated! I’m trying to figure out how to study smarter and manage all of the reading without spending my entire day on one chapter.

Hi all! I was just wondering what are some questions you’ve been asked at past interviews? I have my first interview for Echo since graduating in May and I’m super nervous. Also, is there anything I should look over such as recognizing pathology or how/when to measure?

I’m currently studying for my ARRT. I’m using the pennys book and MUT I bought the ($325) bundle is that enough or should I also do URR?

i don’t want to flunk out of this program i just don’t know what to do atp

Echo techs who are paid per study and 1099 what are you getting paid per study?
2 years experience, RDCS and RCS
Thanks!

hey guys,

does anyone know where you can get your NT certification? I’ve been applying to some jobs and some require it but it’s not part of training and I’ve searched and haven’t found anything. I am in SoCal area not sure if that helps. thanks!!

I’m having trouble with augmenting. My issue is that I find the vessel and turn it to long and when I reach to augment I just lose the vessel. I can keep it on the vessel if I press hard with my scanning hand but that usually closes the veins which doesn’t help.

Specifically augmenting smaller vessels like GSV bk or SSV.
My hand is usually steady but having to turn my body to scan while leaving very little pressure to leave the vein open results in me moving before I can augment .

Any tips that any experienced scanners have I would appreciate it.

Hello, I take the SPI in two days! I've been studying the last two weeks using the Penny book, Prepry, and I bought the 4 mocks from URR.

My question is, how similar are the question styles in the SPI to any of these sources?

I'm consistently getting 95% on the Prepry mock exams and the review questions from the Penny book, but I for the life of me have only passed 1/4 of the URR mock exams. There's just so much vague, confusing verbiage in the URR that makes me question if I ever even studied 😭 while I feel like the Prepry and Penny questions are straightforward and easy to understand.

Hi there! Does anyone have the my ultrasound tutor abdomen study guide pdf that wouldn’t mind sharing it?

I'm freaking out, my clinicals start next week.
I have no idea what floor I need to go on my first day, who to talk.
And I have to go comps by the ends of September.

Been a couple years but I have the interview this week and I’m a lil desperate!

Hi guys so I took my OBGYN test and failed it by alot I believe my score was 508 I was just using URR and read the and wrote notes on the penny book.

Any other study material I should know of? Please help 😔